Big Switch expands hyperscale SDN, inks deal with In-Q-Tel

By GCN Staff

Jul 25, 2014

In an effort to bring its software-defined networking technologies to a broader audience, Big Switch Networks introduced Big Cloud Fabric, the industry’s first and only data center switching fabric that combines the operational advantages of SDN software with the economics of bare metal switch hardware, the company said in its announcement.

The company’s hyperscale networking solutions also attracted the attention of In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the intelligence community, which is interested in the technology for government agencies with demanding data center networks.

“The innovators in data center networking over the last five years have primarily been the hyperscale players such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon,” said Douglas Murray, CEO, Big Switch Networks. “Our mission is to bring this hyperscale design to data centers worldwide, enabling companies to achieve improved operational efficiency and delivering on the original promise of SDN.

The product is designed for new pods in existing data centers and has been in beta with 10 customers to date as a part of private cloud, big data and virtual desktop infrastructure projects, the company said.

The company is also releasing Big Tap 4.0. This version of Big Switch’s network monitoring application now supports distributed, remote data centers and has a rich filtering feature set that includes deeper packet matching, which is applicable for tunneled packets such as those found in mobile protocols and VXLAN.

As Big Switch’s product portfolio grows, it has attracted an ecosystem of partners, including In-Q-Tel, whose partnership will help Big Switch continue development of advanced hyperscale networking solutions for both In-Q-Tel customers and the broader enterprise data center market. Networks built on the bare-metal SDN software from Big Switch are highly automated, as well as cost efficient, as they run on inexpensive bare-metal switches. The technology will allow government and commercial customers to build large, cost-optimized data center networks that can be run with reduced management overhead.

"Big Switch's enterprise-hardened SDN technology creates simplicity in the deployment and management of networks and provides flexibility to scale up to satisfy large and diverse workloads," said Greg Shipley, vice president of In-Q-Tel 's infrastructure and security practice. "We believe bare-metal infrastructure represents an opportunity for our government customers to run demanding data center networks at scale."

Big Switch’s current customers span three continents and numerous verticals, including financial services, high tech, service provider, retail, government and higher education.